Thundering On the Shore
by SongofHopeandHonor
Summary: "They find him passed out by a river; his tail of hair is stuck to one side of his face, limbs sprawled out like a broken doll's. " In which the Spirits conspire to regress Zuko's age by four years, and Katara finds herself looking after a cranky twelve year old prince. Gift fic for beanaroony and xavalos. Oneshot. Zutara.


A/N: This is a present for my darling friends, beanaroony and xavalos (known as fictitiousburn/vivafiction on ffn). Just a humble offering for two of my favorite people.

This is pretty silly, but yeah. I wanted to do a Zutara thing involving S1 Zuko age-regression and Spirit shenanigans, so I did. Don't expect this to make too much sense.

* * *

_I remember the bulwarks by the shore,  
And the fort upon the hill;  
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,  
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,  
And the bugle wild and shrill.  
And the music of that old song  
Throbs in my memory still:  
"A boy's will is the wind's will,  
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."_

_I remember the sea-fight far away,_  
_How it thundered o'er the tide!_  
_And the dead captains, as they lay_  
_In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay_  
_Where they in battle died._  
_And the sound of that mournful song_  
_Goes through me with a thrill:_  
_"A boy's will is the wind's will,_  
_And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."_

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

"My Lost Youth"

* * *

They find him passed out by a river; his tail of hair is stuck to one side of his face, limbs sprawled out like a broken doll's. Katara is the first to kneel at his side, picking the hair away from his face, passing a trembling hand over his cheek. His skin is soft, soft as Aang's, rounded over sharp cheekbones, sealing a jaw that's already sharp as a blade.

"He's alive," she says, skirting her thumb under his eye, peeling open one of his lids, then the other. His pupils aren't blown. But his irises…they're amber, and that gives her pause. She knows of only one group of people who have eyes the color of honey. But he's so young, and he might be hurt, and even her bone-deep prejudice and fear won't allow her to leave him here to rot.

When she touches his pulse, it's steady.

"Haven't you adopted enough random twelve year olds?" This from Sokka, who's propped himself against a tree, scratching at his backside with the edge of his boomerang.

"I resent that," Aang says.

* * *

He wakes up four hours later, propped up in Katara's lap, her hands trailing cool streams of water along his grimy skin. His skin is the color of the bone dagger Sokka carries, under the dirt Katara's gradually washing away, but that doesn't surprise her. Pale skin to go with the deep brown hair and yellow eyes.

He blinks, sighs, shudders, and twists out of her arms, hunching in on himself, coughing up streams of freshwater. He shakes his head, cups a palm over his mouth.

Sokka jolts out of his sleeping roll, clambering up on his knees, club and boomerang at the ready. When he sees the pathetic little ball of flesh that is their new companion, he snorts. But his eyes are sharp with suspicion because he recognizes Fire Nation when he sees it, too.

Aang, who's been pacing around the camp's perimeter in agitated little leaps and strides, brightens when he sees the other boy wake, and bounces over, soft eyes shining with curiosity and eagerness. It's nice, to be around someone who's closer to his age than the other two, although this someone has been about as lively as a log up until now.

"Aang!" Katara shuffles in front of the Avatar, banding her arm around his chest. She's stern, but not unkind. "Careful. You'll startle him."

Abashed, Aang slumps against Katara, bottom lip jutting out.

Katara squats in front of the boy, estimating that he's eleven or twelve. He's squinting down at his loose burgundy tunic now, a tunic that billows around him like it was tailored for a teenager rather than a child. When Katara grazes his chin with her fingers, he startles like an animal and gives her a wild, wary look.

"Hello," Katara says, mouth parting on what she hopes is a reassuring sort of smile. "I'm Katara, and these are my friends—Aang and Sokka." Best to keep Aang's status as the Avatar, given this strange boy's nationality. Hopefully he's too young and dazed and ignorant to piece together the clues—Aang's Air Nomad tattoos, the fact that he's travelling with two Water Tribe youths.

"What's your name?" she ventures when the boy only proceeds to stare at her out of blank yellow eyes. She expected some measure of hostility, something, but all she gets is a drooping mouth and a crumpled brow.

"I…" His voice is pleasant, husky and cracking with the beginnings of puberty. "What am I doing _here_?" He whips his head from one side to the other. "Where's my uncle? Where's my_crew_—" Absently, his fingers lift to touch his face—and he gasps, a perplexed little sound, when they meet his cheek.

Katara doesn't know why, but her stomach starts to twist itself into knots. She makes to pull his hands away from his face, for fear that he'll irritate the bruises wreathing his temples, but he slaps her hands away.

Sokka hurtles forward, wedging himself between Katara and the strange boy. He's bristling with hostility, and for all the boy's youth, it's obvious that Sokka won't hesitate to knock him upside the head with his club.

"Don't touch my sister!"

"I wouldn't _want_ to—I might catch her peasant taint!" The boy shoots to his feet, his soft face crumpling with arrogance in spite of the panicked confusion that lingers in his eyes.

Katara's stomach winds tighter.

"What's your name?" Katara repeats, creaking ever so slowly to her feet. He's shorter than her, by a good head, and his face is smooth and so young, but—

She tips her head to one side, squints. No, it can't be possible, and all she can think is, _Either I'm wrong, or the Spirits are more capricious than I thought_.

The boy draws his shoulders back, tilts his chin, and that arrogance is still there, that damn arrogance that always makes her want to slap the sneer off his face—if she's right; please let her be wrong—it's still there.

"_You_ ought to know, Waterbender. I am Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai, heir to the throne." His voice cracks on the word _throne_, mangling the arrogance, and he frowns.

In the distant, a bird clears the treetops with a squawk and a shudder of branches.

"Or at least…" His mouth softens, then twitches back into a frown. "At least, I think I am."

There is a dull thunk as Sokka hits the ground in a dead faint.

* * *

"Is he dead?"

"No, he's just fainted—stop _kicking_ him."

"I don't take orders from _peasants_."

"You're smaller than me now. Don't think I won't hesitate to lift you by your breeches and toss you into the river."

Aang just parks his butt on a stump and decides that this really must be Zuko, going by how violently he clashes with Katara.

He shrugs to himself. Eh. He's seen weirder.

* * *

"There's no way it can be him." Sokka nudges Zuko's side with his boomerang, only to be swatted away.

"I think it's him," Aang says, squinting into the other child's eyes. He spins an air scooter into existence, perches on it, and leans forward until his nose smushes into Zuko's.

"Get away from me, Avatar!" Zuko inhales, coughs fire, and Aang reels back, face drooping on a pout.

"It's definitely him," Katara says.

* * *

There are benefits to your enemy being reduced to half his original size. The chief benefit being that a tiny enemy is much easier to incapacitate than a tall, muscled enemy.

"I don't know about this, Sokka," Katara says, arms banded beneath her breasts, watching her brother truss up the Prince of the Fire Nation like a roasted hog-monkey. "It doesn't seem right—he's just a kid."

"_Aang_ is just a kid." Sokka pauses, narrowly avoiding Zuko's teeth landing on his nose, and lifts a forefinger. "_You're_ just a kid—"

"_Excuse_ me—"

"—but _that_ never stopped Prince Jerkbender here from tying either of you up!"

"It was necessary." Zuko (it feels so weird, thinking of this unscarred, skinny little boy as "Zuko") tilts his nose up at Sokka, steam trickling out of his mouth. His Firebending seems to have regressed along with his age. The most he's managed is hiccupping little coughs of flame that do no more damage than a burp.

Katara's eyes narrow. She thinks of being lashed to a tree. She thinks of him dangling her mother's necklace—a necklace he _still has_, so far as she knows—in her face, taunting her. She remembers how _helpless_ she felt. Helpless and angry to the point of tears.

Katara waves her hand and turns on her heel. She kneels by the campfire, poking the dying embers with a knobby stick. "Carry on."

"You little bi—_mmph_!"

"I don't know if it's right to gag him, Sokka…what are we going to do with him, anyway?"

"Blackmail, obviously." Sokka sounds quite pleased with himself.

"We don't have anything to gain from that, Sokka. _He's_ the one chasing_ us_ around—"

"Shush!"

Katara can practically hear Aang shrug.

* * *

It gets colder as the night ages, the day's heat leaching out of the ground, dropping deep into the earth where the ragtag group can't hope to touch it. Katara drags her sleeping roll closer to the dying campfire, shivering so hard that her fingers and toes twitch with it. On a reflex, she glances over her shoulder. Zuko's slumped against a stump, knees drawn up to his thin chest, eyes squeezed tight. He looks too tense to be sleeping.

But his eyes are closed, so she lets herself study him. His face is more mature than Aang's, though she's pretty certain they're the same age (physically, at least), his chin pointed, his cheekbones standing out just a little under the baby fat. His lashes rest dark and thick against his perfectly proportioned face. He's too young to be handsome, but he's pretty as a doll.

She wonders, absently, how he would have turned out if not for that scar that ruined nearly half his face. Would he have grown up stunningly handsome? She thinks he might have.

That makes her squirm.

She doesn't want to speak, but the words, "Are you cold? You can come closer to the campfire…if you want," come out before she can stop them.

His eyes don't open. "Firebender. I can regulate my body temperature."

Oh. Well then. Katara huffs and flops onto her side. For some reason, she feels personally insulted. She shoves it aside and draws her knees up to her chest, her shivers racking up in intensity by the second.

There's a drawn-out sigh, a shuffling of limbs. Katara's half-asleep with drowsiness and cold, so when a line of heat touches her back, slips into her sleeping roll, she almost shrieks.

"_What_ are you—"

"My hands are still tied—and I'm twelve." He sounds so cranky, she nearly chuckles. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Katara shrugs and burrows closer to him, twisting in place and flinging an arm over his skinny torso. She can pretend that he's Aang…a very warm Aang.

It occurs to her, just as sleep is dragging her down, that a Firebender can burn through ropes.

* * *

"What the hell are you two doing—"

"Nothing's happening, Sokka! He's twelve!"

"He's the enemy! _You have the enemy in your sleep roll_!"

"Sokka, I swear to all the Spirits, I'll freeze your lips shut!"

"He's an enemy, he's in your bed, and I saw him playing with your hair before you woke up!"

"Sokka, I_ mean _it—"

"He's always had a crush on you! I've seen the way he looks at you! He put his hand on your butt during one of your fights!"

"_SOKKA_."

Only Aang notices that Zuko says nothing.

* * *

"So…what do you think happened?" Katara asks, lifting a branch so Zuko can duck past her, his wrists still secured behind his back, his topknot collecting debris. It's weird, seeing him with a full head of hair.

Granted, this entire situation is "weird"—to put it lightly.

"Your guess is good as mine, Waterbender." He's squinting around, and Katara knows he's waiting for a good opportunity to get away—or better yet, catch his crew's attention and capture the Avatar in the process of his own rescue.

Katara stumbles over a fat root and bumps into Zuko. He huffs at her, but doesn't snap or call her a "clumsy peasant".

"I, uh, had a disagreement with my Uncle. He was telling me something…" His nose crinkles with concentration. "…Something about how I should have more faith in the Spirits. I said the Spirits could…" He flushes. Coughs.

"Could…?"

"Uh…nothing that should be said in front of a girl."

Katara thinks this over, pushing low-hanging branches aside, watching her brother stomp a good ten feet ahead of them, Aang skipping along at his side.

"Maybe this is the Spirits' way of teaching you a lesson," she finally mumbles, catching his elbow when he stumbles. His forehead knocks into her chin, and her lips graze his cheek. He shoots her a frantic kind of look out of his eyes before wrenching away.

"Whatever," Zuko scoffs, marching ahead, the baggy pants notched around his skinny hips drooping over his backside. The back of his neck is bright red.

Katara rolls her eyes and increases her pace.

* * *

Much to Sokka's very vocal displeasure, when they make camp that night, Zuko squirms his way into Katara's sleeping roll.

"Oh, be quiet, Sokka. He's a little boy." Katara loops her arm over Zuko's side and nestles him against the curve of her chest. She doesn't see the smug look Zuko shoots her brother when his cheek cushions itself against Katara's breast.

Nor does she see the scowl of disappointment that slams its way onto Zuko's face when Aang wiggles into the sleeping roll on Katara's other side.

"A little boy with a sixteen year old's brain—"

"Be _quiet_!"

* * *

"I'll miss you," Katara blurts the next day, dipping Sokka's (disgusting) socks into the river. Zuko's hands have been freed of their bindings, courtesy of Aang, and he perches beside her, steaming the soaked laundry dry in his fists. She's surprised that he didn't pitch a fit at being roped into menial labor, but even though he's a prince, he _has_ been at sea for a while.

Maybe he's not as prissy as she originally thought.

"I'll miss you," she repeats, not knowing why she's saying this, not understanding the kernel of affection that's nestled its way into her chest. Affection for the uncertain little boy, of course. Not the angry teenaged jerk he once was.

She knows that, one way or another, she's going to lose this little boy. He'll escape, or his uncle will find him, or the Spirits will grow tired of their game and return him to his former glory.

"You're weird." Zuko rocks back on his heels, apparently not noticing how—how _twelve_ he sounds. "I'm your enemy, Katara."

When he uses her name, rather than "peasant" or "Waterbender", Katara flushes with pleasure.

"Not right now, you aren't," she mumbles, the flush fading. She drops the socks into Zuko's waiting hands and finds that she has to wipe stinging tears from her eyes. "I'll miss who you are…now."

"My father gave me the scar," he says, abruptly, gripping the socks hard as he steams them dry. "That's the only thing about being an adult I don't miss."

She feels like she's been punched in the gut. All the breath leaves her lungs, and an ache settles into her skin.

"Your father," Katara says, voice shaking, "is a monster." And the tears come harder, spilling down her cheeks, pooling in her collarbone.

"What—no, he's not—Katara, why are you—oh my Agni, don't _cry_—"

Zuko scoots closer to her, panic straining his youthful little voice, and grips her shoulders with too-warm hands. "Stop, just—" His mouth touches hers.

Katara seizes up, blinks. His mouth is small, chapped, and fumbling with uncertainty. It's…weird, being kissed by a boy two years younger than her, a child, but she doesn't push him away. Her hands fall limply into her lap, fingers flexing.

Zuko kisses her harder, pushing up onto his knees so their faces are level, angling his jaw. His hands cup her cheeks, thumbs rubbing soothing circles over her cheekbones, smearing the tears along her skin. So clumsy, so awkward, so heartbreakingly uncertain.

And, in spite of how _weird_ it is to kiss a twelve year old, Katara pushes back against him, lips equally clumsy, equally unsure. Her hands dart up, cup the sides of his face, graze hard skin and a bare scalp—

_Bare_ scalp? _Warped skin_?

Zuko yanks her into his arms, splays her across his lap. He has her arched over his forearm in a kind of dip, and she's reeling, because he's _not a little boy_ anymore, he's a grown, older boy with strong arms and a hard chest. How—when—how did he get back to normal—

He's still kissing her, and he's a little more certain now, though still as clumsy as before. He's kissing her with abandon, prying her lips apart with his tongue, sucking the breath from her lungs. Katara clamps her fingers around his high ponytail, tastes his teeth, tastes ashes on his tongue. It's like he's trying to kiss any inclination to cry out of her, and it's working, because everything but the creases in his lips and the thrum of his heartbeat has faded away from her consciousness.

And then she screams, loud enough to send a flock of birds bursting through the trees, and scrambles out of his lap.

Zuko blinks at her, blinks at her out of that face she knows so well, the ruined face, the angry face. Only, he doesn't look angry now. He just looks dazed and flushed, and she wants to kiss him again so badly that it makes her physically ache.

She doesn't kiss him. She slams to her feet and runs away, runs until her lungs want to give out, leaving him to shake himself out of his daze.

She found him by a river.

She loses him by a river.

* * *

"You didn't even remember to grab our laundry—"

Sokka never finishes that shrilled sentence, having had his mouth frozen shut by a wrathful Waterbender.

* * *

"I'm so glad we found you, my nephew."

Zuko grunts and rolls over on his mattress.

"I was becoming very concerned, as was the crew."

Another grunt.

"I prayed to the Spirits every day for your return—"

Zuko says, quite vocally, in quite explicit detail, where the Spirits can put their meddling.

A sly, knowing smile curves Iroh's mouth. He plods out of the room, still smiling.

Zuko runs a thumb over a faded blue ribbon and remembers the taste of rain and musk on his tongue. He remembers how his face felt without the heavy, dead skin of his scar curving over it. He remembers, achingly, wide eyes looking at him with something like affection.

And he _definitely_ remembers the firm curve of a girl's breast against his cheek.

"Thank you, Spirits."

* * *

A/N: As you can see, quite the exercise in stupidity. Anyway, Elle and Bean, I hope you liked it, lovelys~3


End file.
